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8 Sentenced To Death For Drug Smuggling

Prison Terms For 14

May 15, 1997|By From Tribune News Services.

HANOI, VIETNAM — A court Wednesday sentenced eight people, six of whom had been law enforcement officers, to die by firing squad for organizing a heroin-smuggling ring linked to Vietnam's Interior Ministry.

The death sentences were handed down after a jury found all 22 defendants guilty, ending a censored but highly publicized trial, the largest drug trial in modern Vietnam's history.

Vietnam hoped to use the trial to trumpet its campaign against drugs, but indications that the Interior Ministry's law enforcement agencies could be further implicated left the court closed to all but the state-run news media.

The court said the defendants, including ring leader and former police inspector Vu Xuan Truong, helped ferry hundreds of pounds of heroin into Vietnam from Laos.

Foreign reporters were barred from the courtroom at the start of the 10-day trial after Truong threatened to implicate senior ministry officials in his testimony. Four policemen and two border guards were among the eight sentenced to death. Eight others received sentences of life in prison; the remainder received sentences ranging from 1 to 20 years.